Monthly Archives: November 2011

Buffer Size in SSIS

Posted on November 30, 2011 by

Behind the scenes in SSIS, the data flow engine uses a buffer-oriented architecture to efficiently load and manipulate datasets in memory.  The benefit of this in-memory processing is that you do not need to physically copy and stage data at … Continue reading →

Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSIS | 3 Comments

Role-playing Dimensions

Posted on November 28, 2011 by

Dimensions are often recycled for multiple purposes within the same database.  For instance, a “Date” dimension can be used for “Date of Sale”, as well as “Date of Delivery”, or “Date of Hire”.  This is often referred to as a … Continue reading →

Posted in Dimensions, SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS | Leave a comment

Conformed dimensions

Posted on November 21, 2011 by

A conformed dimension is a dimension that has the same meaning to every fact with which it relates.  Conformed dimensions allow facts and measures to be categorized and described in the same way across multiple facts and/or data marts, ensuring consistent … Continue reading →

Posted in Dimensions, SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSAS | 1 Comment

Reference Dimensions

Posted on November 18, 2011 by

A reference dimension occurs when the key column for the dimension is joined indirectly to the fact table through a key in another dimension table.  This results in a snowflake schema design. The following figure shows one fact table named InternetSales, … Continue reading →

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SQL Server 2012 RC0 is here!

Posted on November 17, 2011 by

SQL Server 2012 RC0 (Release Candidate 0), formerly known as SQL Server Denali, is now available for download.  SQL Server 2012 RC0 is the first release which is feature complete. This was unexpected as no one gave any hints that it … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server, SQL Server 2012, SQLServerPedia Syndication | 1 Comment

Degenerate Dimensions

Posted on November 16, 2011 by

Degenerate dimensions, also called fact dimensions, are standard dimensions that are constructed from attribute columns in fact tables instead of from attribute columns in dimension tables.  This is because useful dimensional data is sometimes stored in a fact table to … Continue reading →

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Many-to-Many Dimensions

Posted on November 14, 2011 by

In SSAS, data structures do not always conform to the snowflake or star schema model where one fact is associated with a single dimension member.  For example, consider the example of financial transactions in accounts that can have one or … Continue reading →

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Parallel execution in SSIS

Posted on November 11, 2011 by

Parallel execution in SSIS improves performance on computers that have multiple physical or logical processors.  To support parallel execution of different tasks in a package, SSIS uses two properties: MaxConcurrentExecutables and EngineThreads.  If you are like me, you probably did not … Continue reading →

Posted in SQLServerPedia Syndication, SSIS | 2 Comments

Why does my SSIS package run slower in BIDS than DTEXEC?

Posted on November 9, 2011 by

If you have been creating SSIS packages in Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) for any length of time, you have likely noticed that SSIS packages run slower in BIDS as opposed to running them in a SQL Server agent job … Continue reading →

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SQL Server 2012: New Certifications

Posted on November 7, 2011 by

As a follow-up to my post SQL Server “Denali”: New Certifications, the seven exams for SQL Server 2012 are: Querying Microsoft SQL Server (70-461) [BI and DBA] (info) (course) Administering Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Databases (70-462) [DBA] (info) Developing Microsoft … Continue reading →

Posted in Certification, SQL Server, SQL Server 2012 | 12 Comments